Putting Off College To Be A Ranch Hand

September 27, 1999

Britain's Prince William might put off college for a year to work as a ranch hand in Australia and Argentina, a London newspaper says. Buckingham Palace wouldn't confirm the report, but The Sunday Telegraph said the prince, 17, who will graduate in June from the prestigious private school Eton, will work on cattle and sheep ranches for a year.

He will be accompanied by family friend Edward van Cutsem, 26, the newspaper said. It quoted an unidentified family friend as saying Prince Charles had suggested his son take the year to work. A Buckingham Palace spokesman described the story as "speculation" and refused further comment.

Cirque du Soleil brings out celebrities

The stars came out for the opening in Santa Monica, Calif., of Cirque du Soleil's 13th circus-theater production Dralion.

Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone and Donald Sutherland were among the hundreds who attended the French-Canadian troupe's Friday night gala under a striped tent by the Pacific Ocean. The show runs through Nov. 7.

Cirque du Soleil, which began in 1984, means Circus of the Sun.

Most of the performers in the Asian-themed Dralion, a word combining dragon and lion, are acrobats from the People's Republic of China.

Amy Grant: Timing good for a film role

Pop and gospel singer Amy Grant says movie offers began rolling in after her 1991 music video Baby, Baby but acting never appealed to her until this year. "The majority either were asking me to play a singer or a prairie woman," she said in Nashville, Tenn.

Then CBS Entertainment President Les Moonves asked her to portray a blind cellist in the Sunday night TV movie A Song from the Heart. The timing was good, she said, conceding that she felt "creatively flat-lined" after her recent divorce from singer Gary Chapman. "I didn't have the energy to write. And at that time in life, it was good to get in a work setting and not play me," she said.

Bullet's piercing fascinates audiences

In the new George Clooney movie Three Kings, filmmaker David O. Russell used a cadaver to show in graphic detail how a bullet penetrates a body.

Warner Bros. was so concerned about the effects of the scene that the studio considered removing it, but preview audiences were fascinated, Russell told Newsweek in New York for this week's edition.

The movie is about four soldiers who set off at the end of the Gulf War to find a cache of gold Iraq looted from Kuwait. When co-star Mark Wahlberg saw the scene with the cadaver, he said, he was disgusted. "I don't even want to pick up a gun again," he said. "I see violence on TV and I don't look at it the way I did before."

Springer's return to politics possible

TV talk-host Jerry Springer, called the "ringmaster" for his raucous show known for its on-stage brawls, says he won't rule out a return to the political ring.

Cincinnati's ex-mayor says politics is his passion, and it's likely he'll return to the city one day to run for office. He had considered a challenge to Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine in 2000, but declined, saying he had committed his time to the show. "Trust me, I really thought about doing it," Springer said Friday during a voter registration rally in Cincinnati. But he added: "I can't imagine doing the show while in the Senate."

ALMANAC

It's the 270th day of the year; 95 days are left in 1999. On this date:

In 1939, Warsaw, Poland, surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.

In 1954, Tonight! with Steve Allen debuted on NBC.

In 1964, the Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.

In 1979, Congress approved the formation of the Department of Education, the nation's 13th Cabinet agency.

In 1998, St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire's record-breaking season ended with his 69th and 70th home runs.

Thought for today: "I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time." -- Humorist "Josh Billings" (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818-85)